Word: baumohl
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...Commerce Department reported Tuesday that retail sales rose a minuscule 0.2 percent in August -- a sign that consumer spending, the main underpinning of the U.S. economy's continued strength amid a world of troubles, is slowing down. "The increase barely kept up with inflation," says TIME business reporter Bernard Baumohl. "Clearly, consumers are beginning to pare back their spending...
...reason, as usual, is fear. "Because of the markets, people have felt very wealthy the past several years," Baumohl says. "Now they're getting worried." And the funny thing about consumers is that when they start to fear a recession -- after, say, watching their stock portfolios grow sickly since July -- they end up creating one. "If people do indeed cut sharply back on spending, it could accelerate any downturn the U.S. has, in both speed and severity," says Baumohl. "Consumer spending accounts for two thirds of all U.S. economic activity." So be warned: If the recession comes, you'll have...
...speech Monday before the Council on Foreign Relations in New York, President Clinton drew attention to the global market meltdown and called for an emergency meeting of world financial leaders to draw up a plan of action. "He's doing what he should be doing," says TIME reporter Bernard Baumohl. "We're seeing the greatest threat to world economic growth since the Great Depression, and that's a situation that demands decisive political leadership...
...kick-start stalled growth abroad, and warned that U.S. prosperity was threatened by Congress's decision to reject new IMF funding. Unfortunately, economic intervention requires a political will that may be lacking among the major players. "The crisis demands a response on the scale of the Marshall Plan," says Baumohl. "But Japan is paralyzed, Europe is cautious and Clinton's presidency is weakened. They're unlikely to muster the political support for the spending required by such a plan." With the effects of the global downturn looming just over the U.S. horizon, Clinton's '92 campaign mantra sounds more current...
...error occurred while processing this directive]Fortune Investor Data Not to mention a return to the days of brinksmanship and bomb shelters. "Traders look at Russia, and they see Indonesia with nukes," says Baumohl. "The same failing economy, the same social unrest. But with Russia, there's that spectre that if the wrong people come to power, we've got the Cold War all over again." Baumohl looks at Viktor Chernomyrdin's return to the Kremlin as a "soft coup" -- but what comes next could be very, very hard...